The Flying Graysons Fly Again
by HEB807
Summary: Dick and Danny are twins growing up in Haly's circus. When the Fentons join on as the new handymen both family will have to learn how to adjust to their new life style. With seven people living in the same train car, thing are bound to get tight.
1. Money Trouble

Jazz was four and she was not amused. Her parents were inventors (with a specialty that she didn't care to think about), and Jazz was smart enough to understand that that meant they were always poor. Her parents, as many parents do in similar situations, tried to avoid talking about their financial issues around their young daughter. But Jazz wasn't stupid; in fact, she was pretty darn brilliant, so she knew that things must be getting pretty desperate when her parents took jobs as handymen in a traveling circus.

* * *

Haly's International Traveling Circus was a hodge podge of races, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds. The smell of Mexican mingled in the streets with the smell of German food as the two rival food stalls set up across from one another. In their prep room a clown from Ethiopia argued with a clown from Brooklyn over the proper way to apply makeup. And in the big tent, a Russian acrobat and her Romani husband were showing a young Midwestern couple the ropes- literally.

"One of your other jobs here will be the upkeep and maintenance of the trapeze," said John as he concluded the tour of the Fentons' new responsibilities.

Jack Fenton admired the setup, which had not been lofted yet and was currently resting on the ground. He rubbed his thumb admiringly over the high-tension cable and talked excitedly to himself, "Fiberglass hanging system, right? You know we've been working on this new type of material that'd be lighter and still take twice the weight of this ol' baby! It'd really put some Oomph! In your swi-" Jack trailed off as he noticed the nervous look in John's eye at the thought of altering the trapeze. "O- of course we're nowhere near ready to test that sort of thing out yet, right Mads?"

"Right Jack. Now John, are we also going to be in charge of taking care of the nets, or is that something that you like to see to yourself?"

John and Mary shared a glance, as if smiling at a joke that only they knew. "We don't use a net," John said.

"That's why we get to put 'death defying' on all of our posters." Mary cocked an eyebrow at Maddie, as if daring her to say anything about how dangerous it was.

Maddie just smiled back, realizing that she had just found someone whose tenacity rivaled her own.


	2. The Start of a Beautiful Friendship

Jazz was trying very vigilantly to find some space where she could be alone. But in the overcrowded circus that was now her home, that task was proving to be impossible. She didn't even have her own room to retreat to; due to limited space, all of the Fentons slept and lived in the same one room train car. The same one room train car that a family of acrobats also lived in.

The room had double beds for both sets of adults on either end of the car; these were lofted over abundantly full storage areas. The Fenton parents had half-made inventions and various repair tools for their current job spilling out of theirs. The acrobats' storage area appeared to be much neater and Jazz could only assume that they had acrobaty things in theirs (she was too polite to check.)

Jazz had the top bunk in a set of twin beds that set opposite both what passed as a kitchen and the door leading to the outside.

That was where Jazz was currently. She had the privacy curtain drawn and was curled up on one end of the bed, reading a book about surviving childhood with minimal need for future therapy (it's never too early to start improving your future mental health.) She was also avoiding the still unpacked box on the foot of her bed, but the Fenton's moved around so much that she had gotten used to it by this point.

Jazz threw down her book in anger when it (jokingly) suggested running away and joining the circus as a solution to problematic parents. Like that could help her when she was already in a circus.

It was then that Jazz noticed the set of little hands clinging to the edge of her bed, and the little blue eyes that were peeking out at her from under a black mop of hair.

It was one of the acrobats' sons who shared the bed below hers. Both boys were tiny, thin, and impossible to tell apart, as most identical twins are. Though, for the life of her, Jazz couldn't figure out how the small two year old in front of her had managed to get on the top bed.

The toddler kicked his legs and tried, unsuccessfully, to pull himself the rest of the way onto the bed. Finally, the boy gave up and just dangled from her bed. He looked over at Jazz and said, "Up!" indignantly, as if he thought that she should have noticed his need for help some time ago.

Jazz pulled the boy onto her bed and sat there watching him, waiting for him to explain why he was on her bed. That was until she remembered that 'up' was one of the few English words that the boy knew. This was probably Danny then, and not his brother Dick, as 'up' was one of Danny's favorite words.

Danny climbed into her lap and pointed at the book that she had been reading. This time Jazz got the message and began reading to the strange little boy. Wondering to herself if it was normal for children to want to listen to books in languages that they didn't understand.

* * *

 **A/N: These are the first two chapters in a new story that I'm trying out. Feel free to leave reviews with constructive** **criticism.**


	3. Clowning Around

Maddie and Mary sat together on the wide "front step" of their home. Maddie was busy reinforcing the ramp for the elephants' act. Mary was sewing new costumes for the Graysons' act. Both were laughing like hyenas.

"I miss timed my jump and wound up grabbing John around the knees instead of the ankles; the fabric started to slip and I-"

"And you pantsed him!?"

"Right in front of the entire circus. Luckily it was only a rehearsal, or Mr. Haly would have had our heads."

"I feel as if he would have been laughing right along with everyone else."

"Oh, he was, but we could still tell that he was glad it didn't happen in a performance. So that's why all of our costumes are one pieces now."

Maddie smiled warmly at Mary; trying hard not to laugh at her misfortune. "Well did I ever tell you about the time that Jack sucked our house into a parallel dimension?"

"I can't say that you have."

"It was a couple years ago; Jazz wasn't even one yet. And I left him alone with her for an hour while I went to the store. When I came back our half of the rental house was gone and I was swarmed by our angry neighbors. To make a long story short, Jack was able to bring the house back, but we were never allowed to rent there ever again."

"Well I can't say that I blame your landlord."

"Oh, I didn't either. But Jack was so mad because he had managed to fix the house so that you couldn't even tell there had been an issue, but we still didn't get our deposit back. He wound up "accidentally" spraying the man with a garden hose on our way out of town."

* * *

Jazz was babysitting. Or, well, she was watching the clown who had been asked to watch her and the twins. Mr. and Mrs. Grayson were practicing for tomorrows performance and her parents had been called away to fix the tiger enclosure which was malfunctioning.

The clown, Louis she thought he was called, was apparently the Grayson's go to babysitter, as he was one of the few people that could keep up with their hyperactive boys. Jazz however couldn't understand why the clown was watching her also.

She was twice the age of the boys and much too old to need a sitter. Besides, she was much more mature than the older clown, so she took it upon herself to watch Louis and make sure that he didn't mess anything up.

The clown had bought them all popcorn (maybe he wasn't so bad after all) and they were currently eating it in the big tent while they watched the older Graysons practice.

The couple twisted and turned, leaping from one hanging bar to the next. At one point Mrs. Grayson wound up hanging from her husband's toes, holding on only with her knees, which were wrapped around his ankles. Even Jazz had to admit that she was impressed.

Eventually the Graysons came down and retrieved their children from Louis, who had to leave to make it to the clown rehearsal on time. It was then that John noticed the Look of aww in Jazz's eye. "You liked what you saw?"

Jazz only nodded in affirmative.

"Just wait till these guys can get up there with us," he said picking up Danny. "The act always looks better with more people in the air."

Jazz noticed the wistful look in his eye and remember on old flying Graysons poster that she had seen. That's right, the act used to have more people. That was until Mr. Grayson's parents died (old age she was told) and his aunt left the circus. Jazz suddenly felt sorry for the man who seemed to live for the moments when his entire family was in the air together. "I guess it will be a while before these guys join you," she said gesturing to the twins.

"Maybe sooner than you think," said Mr. Grayson. "My parents started bringing me up when I was three."

"Well maybe not three," Mrs. Grayson said; clearly uncomfortable with the idea of her twins, who were already almost three, being up on the trapeze.

"I wasn't flying on my own. My parents did everything for me; I was just being passed around."

"We'll see," Mrs. Grayson said smiling sweetly at her husband, clearly unwilling to continue this conversation in front of Jazz.

For her part, Jazz agreed with Mrs. Grayson, three was way too young to be up there. But she thought, noticing the way that the boys hung from their parents, as if trying to leap into the air; Mrs. Grayson might not be able to keep her boys away from the trapeze for much longer, even if she tried.

* * *

 **A/N: I won't usually be able to get new chapters out this fast, but your response was so positive that I couldn't help but make time to write. This chapter is even longer than the other two, so I hope you like it.**

 **Feel free to leave a review if you see anything wrong (or even if you don't.)**

 **And this is a response to Guest of Honor: Yes, this will remain largely canon compliant.**


	4. Flying Lessons

In the end, it was a fight that Mary lost. Her husband had been supportive and agreed to wait to start training the boys until they were older, but her own sons had forced Mary's hand.

Just last week she had found Dick three-fourths the way up the ladder to the trapeze, the week before John had found Danny swinging upside down from the pole over the fortune teller's both, and these weren't isolated incidents. They were only the latest installments in a set of ever more dangerous stunts the boys had gotten themselves into.

Sunday, after they had found the boys lowering themselves into the lions' cage with ropes that they had tied in the rafters, John and Mary sat down and had a long talk. After which it was decided that Dick and Danny needed to be taught the proper way to use the trapeze—for their own safety.

The hope was also that if the boys were taught to do the thing that they had always wanted to (flying with their parents) maybe they would spend less time using their acrobatic talents for other reasons (like breaking into lion cages.)

This was how only a few months after their third birthday Dick and Danny came to have their first lesson on the flying trapeze.

* * *

Dick was practically, ok actually, bouncing off the walls with excitement. His hands fluttered and his motions blurred with uncontainable energy.

He looked over and shared a smile with his brother. They had finally done it, months of hard work and long groundings had payed off, their parents had finally agreed to teach them how fly on the real trapeze like they did.

This was a moment that Dick had been waiting for his entire life, or well most of it—probably. Dick couldn't remember when he was a baby, but he was certain that even then he had still wanted to fly like his parents.

Dick adjusted the itchy harness at his waist. Mr. and Mrs. Fenton had set up a harness system connected to the trapeze that Dick and Danny could wear when they practiced. The harnesses were bulky and uncomfortable and the way they were set up was going to prevent Dick from doing some of the cool stunts that he wanted to try.

But they gave their parents peace of mind because they couldn't actually, you know, fall to the ground if they happened to slip. (Not that Dick was going to slip mind you, just try telling his parents that.) And their parents' peace of mind was a prerequisite for flying lessons.

* * *

John sat on the catch trapeze with his elbows wrapped around the cable for support. The catch trapeze had been moved closer to the starting platform for this lesson. Neither of these were standard procedure for the trapeze but John wasn't actually going to be catching his sons, just grabbing their ankles and sending them back to their mom.

Danny went first, much to Dick's chagrin.

Mary used a hooked pole to pull the fly bar to the starting platform. "Now Danny*, I want you to grip the bar hard, with your hands shoulder width apart.—Good. Now you're going to jump off and swing to your father, make sure to keep your legs together and here you go!"

Danny jumped from the board and for a moment, he seemed to hang in the air as if gravity had no sway on him. Then he was soaring through the air; those precious few seconds felt like the first time he had ever truly lived in his entire life.

John caught Danny's ankles at the top of his arc. He took a moment to drink in the look of combined fear and utter exhilaration on his son's face that only the trapeze could produce. Then he let go of Danny's ankles, giving him a good shove so that he would make it back to the board.

Mary grabbed her son as soon as he came in reach and pulled him close to her; she was so proud of how well Danny had done, but even the safety harness that he was wearing didn't stop the moment of pure terror that she had felt when her son jumped off the platform.

Dick didn't want to wait until his mother was done with Danny and pulled the fly bar back to him, that was going to take five-ever—which is even longer than _four_ -ever. So, he took matters into his own hands.

He backed up to the end of the platform, took a running start, and flew.

His Dad had just enough time to yell, "No Dick! Don't!" Before his son launched himself into the air.

Technically speaking, Dick was in free fall, but the momentum from his run was still carrying him forward. The fly bar was still oscillating from Danny's swing; luckily, Dick managed to catch it on the top of the swing closest to him.

Dick's momentum was much greater than Danny's had been, so he soared toward his father at break neck speeds. Dick had wanted to flip off of the fly bar in a somersault like his parents did in shows, but both the harness and the position of the trapeze were preventing him from doing so.

In the end, John grabbed Dick before he could think of something to do instead of the somersault.

John decided that he couldn't trust Dick to swing back on his own. So he transitioned between the catch trapeze and the fly bar (a rather hard thing to do from his current position), hung upside down from the fly bar, and grabbed his son's wrists to carry him back to his mother.

By this time, Mary had noticed what Dick had done and was ready to catch him when John carried him back.

As John set the over eager boy in Mary's arms a thunderous applause erupted from below. Mary (and John once he had dismounted the trapeze) looked down to see the front few rows of stands packed with nearly everyone in the entire circus.

Startled by the unexpected company and needing to give Dick a stern talking to, John and Mary decided to end practice early. They carried their sons down the ladder and were mobbed by well-wishers once they reached the ground.

John gave Pop Haly an inquisitive look as he passed by, one that seemed to say— that was nice, but why did everyone show up to watch us?

Haly clapped John on the back and smiled, "It's not every day that you get to see a Graysons' first flight. That's a sight that many of us wouldn't have missed for the world."

"You've got a pair of natural flyers there John," Haly said ruffling the boys' hair. "Try not to punish Dick too much for doing the same thing you would have done in his shoes."

John nodded as Haly left and looked down at the boy in his arms. Dick couldn't even bother to look sheepish for his actions; in fact, both of his sons look like they couldn't wait to get back in the air.

His sons had just gotten their first taste of the most exhilarating, addicting thing in the world, and John couldn't have been more proud.

* * *

 ***In case you were wondering, whenever Mary speaks to the boys, she speaks in Russian. Whenever John speaks to them he speaks in Romani. And whenever the boys speak at all (unless specifically mentioned otherwise) its in a combination of both languages.**

 **A/N: So this will probably be about how long it will normally take me to put chapters out for this story. Tell me whether or not you like how long the last scene was (in between line breaks is a 'scene'), I've been trying to write longer for you guys.**


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